Abstract
This article intends to analyze the confluences between Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and the Brazilian writer Machado de Assis (1839-1908), based on the comparison between “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) and the short-story “O enfermeiro” (“The Attendant’s Confession”), published in the volume titled Várias Histórias (Various Stories) in 1896, and translated by Isaac Goldberg in 2013. In the first part of the article, I’ll analize Machado’s interest in Poe’s works, which appears in many references in his stories, as well as in the famous translation of the poem “The Raven”, published in A Estação in 1883. In the second part of the article, I’ll compare the two stories in respect to Machado’s adaptation of Poe when it comes to metaphorical criticism against Brazilian literature and society at that time, that continued to imitate old models instead of searching for its own identity. The conclusion is that Machado adapted Poe in his search for this identity due to his interest in North-American political aspects that transformed the United States as a parameter to be followed by Brazil in the 19th century.